


Coffee [Cup Two]

by Teigh



Series: Wee Fic Word Prompts [9]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-09
Updated: 2006-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:51:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teigh/pseuds/Teigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith in prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee [Cup Two]

**Author's Note:**

> Faith's Watcher, Emmaline, is an OC.

It isn't until she'd been behind bars for three months that she begins to understand why people go to church. When she says people she still doesn't mean herself. The only good uses she'd ever found for the Church were work-related. Crosses and holy water were good distractions, like well-made smoke bombs that got eyes watering and hid the fatal arc of a stake. These days, she ignores the slithery voice that whispers to her about the stark beauty of plain wooden crosses, pressed smoking against undead flesh, the voice that idly wonders if holy water always looks like acid burns, the voice that longs to see a rosary's afterimage burned into a pale throat.

Prison had given her 'opportunity to contemplate her past and discern the dysfunctions existent in her daily routine.' Or some crap. The prison's head shrink had written that in her file, and left it lying out were she could read it, all arrogant like those mooks sitting on front stoops back in Boston, legs spread wide so the whole world could see the size of their balls. The bitch-kitty here was that the shrink was kinda right- she had all kinds of time for 'contemplation' and had discovered far too many things she didn't like. No shock there. What was surprising was how much she enjoys having the time to think. She's seen how others cling to their beliefs and thought long and hard about her own routines. Many long nights of pacing her cell, as the slayer instinct within her screamed to be out patrolling, has finally given her some guidance. It had led her to coffee.

Prison coffee sucks. Battery acid is milder, light beer has more flavor. But her life was wound up in the heat and scent of coffee. It connects her to the Espresso Pump and the memory of Scooby meetings. It connects her to Angel Investigations and the tarry smell of coffee that hangs over the front office, like a wino lingering outside a sheltered doorway in December. More than that, though, coffee connects her to Emmaline. Her Watcher.

Emmaline was a hard-core coffee drinker. Movies and TV had taught her that all buttoned-up Brits where supposed to be drinking tea. Not Emmaline. For her it was all whole bean, hand grinder, French press coffee-which was, thinking back, as complicated as tea drinking. Under the oh-so-precious French press, Emmaline had a fire-proof tile, with a sketch of a coffee pot and a saying on it. She'd read it so many times, waiting for a fresh pot of water to boil, the saying was burned into her brain. She still fully expects those to be the last words on her lips when she finally bites it. The saying goes like this: "I love coffee. Strong as Love, Sweet as a Kiss, Black as Night and Hot as Hell." She knows the saying's kinda dumb, a cliché even. But it's hers. These days, every time she holds a warm cup in her hands, she thinks about… no she contemplates that saying.

Night she knows- its darkness matches her own, that rawness she sprang from, years ago. Hell… well, she gets that too. Has it all balled up and burning right in the middle of her chest. The heat is of her own creation and she still fights it, every night. Sweet kisses were her currency once, the shimmy slide five-by-five hip thrust lip lock her only possible in… which is why she understands redemption. Because kisses always touch and brush against that final part- love. And if she can know the other parts, she can know this last glistening phrase. Love.

_Blonde hair, wide smile. The laughter of a dark-haired boy._

Home is there. She knows it. It gets her through the day, even when emphasis shifts with her moods. This is her ritual-this is the hope she holds, in that brief moment before that first sip of coffee.


End file.
